FIFA Rankings: Vietnam and Thailand both advance after Asian Cup 2019
(Baonghean.vn) – Thanks to the positive results at the 2019 Asian Cup, the Vietnam National Team has made progress in the world football rankings in January 2019. Meanwhile, Qatar, with the championship, also had a rapid breakthrough.
At the 2019 Asian Cup, the Vietnamese team reached the quarter-finals but only won 2 matches, including the last match of the group stage against Yemen 2-0 and in the round of 16 against Jordan 4-2 thanks to the penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw in the official match time. However, due to losing to Iraq, Iran in the group stage and Japan in the quarter-finals, which were teams with higher rankings, the Vietnamese team did not lose significant points.
Thanks to that, after the end of the 2019 Asian Cup, the Vietnam National Team still advanced 1 place from 100th to 99th in the world. And especially, it surpassed the 17th position in Asia to 16th (surpassing Palestine and India).
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| Progress chart of Vietnamese football. Photo: FIFA |
This is considered an extremely important step in the journey as coach Park Hang-seo once said that the Vietnam team must strive to improve further to gradually move towards the Top 10 position in Asia. At that time, the future prospect towards the World Cup finals will be more feasible.
In the immediate future, with the 16th position in Asia and 99th in the world, the Vietnam National Team will be placed in the second or third seed group when the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) takes the position on the FIFA rankings in February (most likely unchanged as at present).
Since there is no international tournament schedule in the near future, the teams will be divided into groups and draw lots for the second qualifying round of the 2022 World Cup (starting in September 2019). The 2022 World Cup qualifiers in Asia will also be a competition for tickets to the 2023 Asian Cup, similar to the 2018 World Cup qualifiers and the 2019 Asian Cup.
| FIFA rankings after Asian Cup 2019, Vietnam increased 1 rank and ranked 99th. Photo: Footy Rankings |
Thus, the advancement of even just one level of the Vietnam National Team after the 2019 Asian Cup is very important when being in the 2nd or 3rd seed group drawn into an easy group will have many prospects of entering the 3rd qualifying round to hopefully compete for a place in the 2022 World Cup, as well as achieving the goal of participating in the 2023 Asian Cup.
Meanwhile, Thailand has risen 3 places from 118 to 115. Iran and Japan continue to hold the No. 1 and No. 2 positions in Asia despite losing in the semi-finals and finals of the 2019 Asian Cup, respectively. Qatar, with a perfect record of winning all matches and conceding only 1 goal, has risen to No. 5 in Asia and No. 55 in the world./.
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